Eve Gentry
{{more citations needed|date=November 2019}}
{{Short description|American modern dancer}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Eve Gentry
| other_names = Eve Brooks, Eve Gentry Brooks
| birth_name = Henrietta Greenhood
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1909|08|21}}
| birth_place = Los Angeles, California, U.S.
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1994|06|17|1909|08|21}}
| death_place = Santa Fe, New Mexico, U.S.
| known_for = Modern dance, Pilates instruction
}}
Eve Gentry (August 21, 1909{{cite web |title=United States Social Security Death Index |url=https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JKRY-Y3P |website=FamilySearch |accessdate=31 December 2018}} – June 17, 1994; née Henrietta Greenhood, and pseudonym Eve Brooks){{Cite book |title=Dictionary of Women Worldwide: 25,000 Women Through the Ages |publisher=Thomson Gale |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-7876-9394-7 |pages=728 |chapter=Gentry, Eva (c. 1920–)}} was a modern dancer, and later a Pilates master instructor. She was an original disciple of Joseph Pilates, and a master teacher of his technique to generations of instructors. She helped found the Dance Notation Bureau in New York City and later in 1991 she co-founded the Institute for the Pilates Method in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Early life
Gentry was born on August 21, 1909, and grew up in San Bernardino, California. In 1917, she studied ballet, and folk dance.{{Cite book |last=Rapuzzi |first=Laura Anna |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=K-kSEAAAQBAJ |title=Pilates and breast cancer recovery |date=2021-01-08 |publisher=Tektime |isbn=978-88-354-1658-6 |pages=7 |language=en}}
Gentry was studying in Los Angeles when Martha Graham saw her perform and offered her a scholarship in New York City. Gentry performed with Hanya Holm in the Hanya Holm Dance Company in New York City from 1936 to 1942,{{Cite book |last=McPherson |first=Elizabeth |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xWKpQ_-dPyUC |title=The Bennington School of the Dance: A History in Writings and Interviews |date=2013-06-13 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-1-4766-0295-0 |pages=117, 297 |language=en}}{{Cite news |date=1994-06-25 |title=Eve Gentry, 84, Dancer and Notator |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/25/obituaries/eve-gentry-84-dancer-and-notator.html |access-date=2022-03-07 |issn=0362-4331}} and later founded her own group, the Eve Gentry Dancers. Additionally she studied Labanotation from Rudolf von Laban's students Irmgard Bartenieff and Irma Otto-Betz.{{Cite web |title=Eve Gentry |url=https://lohpdigitalarchive.omeka.net/exhibits/show/lohp/eve-gentry--1909-1994- |access-date=2022-03-07 |website=Legacy Oral History Online Collection, Museum of Performance + Design}}
She danced under the name Henrietta Greenhood until 1945, when she professionally adopted Gentry, her husband's surname.
Career
Her concern for preserving choreography led her to establish the Dance Notation Bureau in New York in 1940, with Ann Hutchinson Guest, Janey Price and Helen Priest Rogers. The Dance Notation Bureau promoted the ideas of Labanotation.{{Cite journal |last=Laemmli |first=Whitney E. |date=2017 |title=Paper Dancers: Art as Information in Twentieth-Century America |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44667593 |journal=Information & Culture |volume=52 |issue=1 |pages=1–30 |doi=10.7560/IC52101 |jstor=44667593 |s2cid=151475081 |issn=2164-8034}}
She was a charter faculty member of the High School for the Performing Arts (now Baltimore School for the Arts).
Persistent back and knee problems led her to investigate, and later teach, a system of physical conditioning devised by Joseph Pilates.{{Cite book |last= |first= |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gOkDAAAAMBAJ |title=Yoga Journal |date=November 1994 |publisher=Active Interest Media, Inc. |pages=64 |language=en}} She taught "Contrology" at the Pilates Studio in New York from 1938 through 1968. Gentry also taught "Pilates" in the early 1960s at New York University's, Tisch School of the Arts Theater Department.
In 1968, she moved to New Mexico, where she established a Pilates Studio on Camino de la Luz.{{Cite book |last1=Redfield |first1=Stacey |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IzaoDwAAQBAJ |title=The Pilates Effect: Heroes Behind the Revolution |last2=Holmes |first2=Sarah |date=2019-09-01 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-1-68435-088-9 |language=en}} In 1991, she co-founded the Institute for the Pilates Method in Santa Fe with Joan Breibart and Michele Larsson.{{Cite web |last=Begelman |first=Beth |date=February 20, 2020 |title=Interview with Joan Breibart |url=https://www.pilatesdigest.com/interview-with-joan-breibart-of-the-physicalmind-institute/ |access-date=2022-03-07 |website=Pilates Digest |language=en-US}} Gentry is credited with founding the concept of imprinting in Pilates.{{Cite book |last=Isacowitz |first=Rael |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4ekNqpRvz4gC |title=Pilates |date=2006 |publisher=Human Kinetics |isbn=978-0-7360-5623-6 |language=en}}
The first workshop was held in October 1991, taught by Gentry, using eight "Mini-Moves" inspired by the principles of Feldenkrais and Bartenieff. These Mini-Moves became the foundation of the Fundamentals which are the signature of the PhysicalMind Institute, the successor to the Institute for the Pilates Method. There are now 28 Fundamentals and they have been copied by most of the subsequent Pilates Certification companies who followed the distribution system originated by Joan Breibart.{{citation needed|date=February 2020}}
She died at the age of 84 on June 17, 1994, at her home in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Awards
In 1979, she was given the "Pioneer of Modern Dance Award" by Bennington College. She was also deemed a Living Treasure by the State of New Mexico in 1989.
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- [https://oralhistoryportal.library.columbia.edu/document.php?id=ldpd_4076642 Reminiscences of Eve Gentry: oral history, 1979.], Columbia University
- Video: [https://search.alexanderstreet.com/preview/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cvideo_work%7C490436 Dance On with Billie Mahoney, Eve Gentry, Part 1] (1990)
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Category:American female dancers
Category:Dancers from New York (state)
Category:Tisch School of the Arts faculty
Category:People associated with physical culture